By Ian McConnell
AN Edinburgh seafood restaurant which is closed to sit-in diners during the coronavirus crisis lockdown but has launched a home-delivery service has secured a £50,000 loan to cover business-critical costs.
Royal Mile restaurant Ondine, led by chef-proprietor Roy Brett and wife Karin, has secured the loan from Barclays under the UK Government bounce back loan scheme.
Stuart Brown, of Barclays, said: “Ondine was one of the thousands of restaurants across the UK that had to effectively shut their doors overnight because of the lockdown.” He flagged the “ongoing revenue stream” secured by the home-delivery move.
The loan provides working capital to support the new delivery service and cover costs such as supply chain expenses and wages for non-furloughed staff, Barclays noted.
The bank added that it had provided a six-month capital repayment holiday on existing finance and a three-month "rental holiday" on the restaurant’s Barclaycard payment terminals.
Barclays noted Ondine, an 80-cover dining room opened in 2009, had been named Best Restaurant in Scotland for the second year running at the Estrella Damm National Restaurant Awards in 2019.
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Brexit circus tensions build as UK and EU reach critical point
Karin Brett, co-owner of Ondine, said: “We have been supported exceptionally well by Barclays. Our relationship manager Richie Paul has been helping us every step of the way to get through these difficult times and get Ondine the financial help needed to keep the business in a positive position as we work through the Covid-19 lockdown.”
Mr Brown said: "By moving quickly to get an at-home service in place they have managed to secure an ongoing revenue stream and this bounce back loan will provide additional essential financial support to meet business critical costs. Karin Brett engaged with us very early in the process and has worked closely with her business manager as the restaurant has transitioned through lockdown.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel